


Overtures

by ALotOfHoopla



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Compulsory Heterosexuality, I gave my D&D Characters too much trauma and now I can't stop writing about them, Original Characters - Freeform, Sex, character history
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28880484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALotOfHoopla/pseuds/ALotOfHoopla
Summary: I tried to stick to 1500 words for each D&D character buuuuut I broke it. Have some backstories tho <3
Kudos: 1
Collections: Sin Bin DnD





	1. Tahnon - Tahni & 'Ani

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Comp-het and some sex  
> LOL RIGHT OUT THE GATE WITH THIS ONE Y'ALL

The brass knob warms in Tahnon’s hand as he slowly closes the nursery door, the hinges whispering just enough to make him hold his breath. When the door clicks and the toddler on the other side doesn’t stir, he lets out a sigh and grins. Between his daughter and his mother napping, the man reckons he has a quiet hour.

He puts his glasses on and sits down with the cedar star he’s been whittling. His knife rounds out the edges for a moment before a key ring jingles outside his front door.

A human woman walks in, tawny face flushed from the cold walk on over. She takes off her hat and lets out a gasp when her brown eyes widen in surprise to the size of saucers and land on Tahnon. “Why, as I live and _breathe_ ,” she whispers as she presses the back of her hand to her forehead in melodrama. “Is that my lovely husband?”  
Tahnon looks up at her over his glasses and smiles. “That depends,” he muses with equal flourish as he stands to greet her with a theatrical hand to his chest. “Is that my _beautiful_ wife?”

Tahnon swears he doesn’t crack first because Wavani is the first one to laugh. Technically, though, his lips twitch into a smirk just before.

As the facade drops and the two of them melt into laughter, the woman steps forward and pulls Tahnon into a bear hug. He happily reciprocates, ruffling his friend’s hair and resting his stubbled chin on her head. The scent of her perfume is a little too familiar - cinnamon, with a hint of cedar. “Did you take my cologne?”

“Shhh, I’m hugging my husband.” She earns an eye roll from him. “But the florist I told you about? She loved it.”

Tahnon chuckles, the sound deep and low and vibrating in his large chest. It makes Wavani pause because she can feel the typically humble man radiating smugness. She’s the one rolling her eyes now. “Yes...You were right.”

“I have my moments.” He smiles again. “Does this mean she was interested?”

“She is! We’re going to the market together this weekend.” Wavani grins as she lets go of Tahnon, lithe form twirling about the foyer of their cottage as she makes her way to the living room. It’s endearing, but a pit of worry opens up in his stomach. The woman studies his face and clicks her teeth at him.

“Don’t look at me like that.”  
“...’Ani.”  
She huffs a mock dramatic sigh. “We’ll be extra careful. If anyone sees us, we’re just a couple of housewives doing lady things, like shopping for groceries.”  
And he wants to believe it’ll be that easy. But they both know that what they’re doing with each other in the daylight and what they hide in shadows with others is forbidden in the small town. Tahnon’s brows furrow, and Wavani walks back up to him to pull him into another hug.

  
A moment of silence passes. “I just worry,” he finally whispers.  
She nods against his chest. “And I love you for that, but I learned everything I know about taking care of myself from watching you,” she reassures, earning the smallest of smiles in return from him.

Wavani then beckons him to follow her as she moves to sit on the couch, legs folding up under her form. She pulls two small kits from her bag. Needles and thread spools rattling in the tin boxes. “Today, I’m teaching you how to mend.”  
Tahnon’s thick eyebrow raises. “Sewing? Isn’t that-  
She shakes a kit at him. “Don’t you dare call it woman’s work,” she taunts. “You split your own, you fix your own, Tahni.”

He puts his hands up in surrender and snorts as he laughs. “I wouldn’t call it that. I promise,” he clarifies, “I just don’t think I’ll be as precise as you.”

“Oh stop. Just make sure you keep your stitches straight.”

Tahnon moves some of the decorative pillows aside as he sits down. The couch’s wooden frame creaks under their weight as she shows him how to backstitch with a gentle hand. His large fingers are awkward around the needle at first, but he eventually gets the hang of it. His stitches are only a little crooked.

They’re about to tie off before the small taps of little footsteps and the creeaaak of their daughter’s door opening interrupts them. Tahnon makes sure to put the needles out of reach as the child sleepily wanders over and climbs onto his lap. He lifts her up under the shoulders, Adelia’s black ringlet curls bouncing as she lifts. She squeals in delight as he pulls her into an embrace, a boulder to her mousy frame.

“Did my Delly have a good nap?” He asks, grin wide on his face. Tahnon stands up and hoists his daughter onto his shoulders, effortlessly holding her as he makes his way to the fireplace. Tiny hands grip his hair as Adelia tells him about the dream she had of bears and dragons and the ducklings on the pond and- and- and-  
“Can we go feed the ducks tomorrow?” she asks as the log clatters into the fire, filling the room with warmth. It radiates into Tahnon’s neck as he feels Wavani come up behind them and pick up the child. She hugs her to her chest, kissing her tan forehead.

When Tahnon turns around, the sight quells any of the earlier fear in his heart. He wonders how many lifetimes he will have to live to repay the gods for giving him the gentle companionship of his lifelong friend and such a beautiful child. When Wavani’s eyes meet his own for a brief moment, he has a feeling they’re thinking about the same thing.

He smiles. “Of course, Delly.”

The log in the fireplace splinters and cracks down the middle, the flames gracious.

\----

Long after he puts Adelia to bed and kisses his mother goodnight, the man rests against Wavani on the same couch.

“I’m sorry that this is so...Awkward,” Tahnon apologizes to her for probably the fifth time that night as his thrusts slow to a stop. He shifts his weight against her legs. “I could...We could collect it in a vial-“

She snorts. “What am I, a turkey?” She snaps, and the joke instantly cuts through half the tension between them, their laughs harmonizing in the quiet room of the cottage. The couch frame laughs along, creaking as Tahnon grips her hips to readjust them.

His hands graze her thighs as he brings them back up to bend. She’s beautiful, of course, curves holding in the ferocity of her spirit. The fact that his dearest friend is one of the most beautiful women in their town makes this infinitely easier on him.

But, always the giver, Tahnon checks in with her, lips pressed to her knee. She’ll have to do most of the work after this to carry Adelia’s sibling, anyway; it should be as enjoyable for her as he can make it.

  
“Would it help to perhaps...Pretend I’m someone else?” the man offers as he rests his palms on her dark knees, her skirt gathered at her waist. It’s a serious -and absurd- suggestion, but they both knew this would be awkward. It was awkward last time. “The florist, maybe?”

“And who am I?” His wife asks with a quirked brow. “The Crownsguard Captain that you spoke to the other day? The one with the green eyes and the sparkly armor?” Her grin tells Tahnon that she’s laughing, but not at all joking.  
Now he’s blushing with one hand covering his face while the other squeezes her knee. “Gods, was I *that* obvious?” he groans.

Wavani laughs again as she rolls onto her stomach, back arched. “You have a tell, Tahni.” She holds a loose fist up and runs her thumb over the knuckle of her index finger to illustrate, then stops. “You stop fidgeting when you see a beautiful man.”

Tahnon has to let her win this one; she knows him better than he’ll ever know himself.

When they stop laughing and bring themselves to continue, he closes his eyes and thrusts, pretending the fabric of her skirt clangs like armor.

\--

He makes his wife a cup of coffee the next morning, a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk stirred into the bitter liquid. Tahnon hands her the porcelain jar of cinnamon for her to sprinkle liberally on top because he knows he can never get just enough in there before it becomes overpowering. He acknowledges it as another way in their marriage where he’s just barely insufficient, just barely not what she needs in the same way he, on their walks, looks beyond her at the horizon line. There’s something that pulls his heart, but Tahnon reels it back every time.

He’d rather have half a companion than an entirety of rejection from where they call home.

They make it work.


	2. Eddy - Woman in The Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddy was never meant to be contained in 1500 words. Deal with it.

In the Sea Ward of Waterdeep, there’s a festival around this time every summer to honor the legend of the goddess who emerged from the waves to build the city. To celebrate her ferocity against the tide, her footsteps digging into the sand as she comes home. To honor the way she inspires sailors and fishermen alike to always hold the sea in reverence, and she will hold them in return.

Eddy Mar, on the other hand, drops another fuckin’ glass in the kitchen. 

The aromas of roasted potatoes, asparagus, and beef mingle in the air of the kitchen as she lunges for the broom and dustpan near the oven - she’s learned by now to keep them close, her mind permanently elsewhere from rouxs and stews. She grumbles a string of curses as she sweeps up the pieces.

“Can you come _back_ to this plane?” her classmate snaps. Black shoes come into her view, but she doesn’t want to give Galen the satisfaction of looking up.

“Can you hop off my _entire_ dick?” Eddy hisses to his toes. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to like that, bu-”

“I believe it’s the heavy-handed airhead who can’t go a week without wrecking the kitchen.” Galen pauses. Then, a scoff. “Or over-seasoning the ste- OW!” He yelps as the woman smacks the half-elf with the blunt end of the broomhandle and barely avoids his kick to her shoulder. “You’re _incorrigible!”_

“You’re a _jackass_.” Eddy’s comeback is less refined as she stands up, but even his anger can’t compete with her bite. She feels his glare on her as she shakes the shards into the trash can. God, she hates this asshole. Hates his stuffy attitude, the way he takes forever to chop vegetables, the way he’s breathing heavily as he glares at her, the way her chest heaves as she glares right back...

Her lips are on his in approximately seventy-eight seconds later, teal hands claiming her conquest as her back sinks against the storage room door. Galen always swears he won’t do this again, won’t entertain _her_. But, time after time, his hands find her hips, fingers barely avoiding the exposed blue skin of her midriff. It’s one of her few limits; she’s otherwise shameless enough to welcome him back here, in the alleyway, or behind the restaurant long after close. She’s always the spider to his fly, cat to his mouse with cutting words, blue thighs wrapped around his waist, and her whisper in his ear to just, “Say it.” 

She always makes men say her full name and laughs as they stumble over it. He was never going to be an exception. _”Eānderil. Is that so hard?”_

Her fingers grip around his as she pulls him back to the present and adjusts his hand in her open waistband, shifting his palm to the left. “No, like _this_.”

As always, she gets hers first and spills into his palm with a laugh that she wouldn’t dare muffle. The Genasi wasn’t raised to calm her storm for anyone, and she isn’t going to start for a cook in a dusty storage room.

As revenge, she leaves before he gets his.

“Cover for me - and don’t forget to wash your hands,” Eddy reminds him as she slings her bag over her shoulder while he’s still reeling. Long turquoise hair goes up into a ponytail before she’s out the window, diving into the river and far away from his protests and the feeble jingle of his belt.

* * *

The river flowing by the restaurant welcomes her as warmly as it has for the past few months she’s practiced this swim for the hunt. The stories of a real, actual _genie_ being right under Waterdeep’s nose might be too good to be true, but any lead is worth a look. Plus, the best time to investigate would be when the whole ward was off celebrating.

The sun sets through the murky water as Eddy’s deft hands investigate nearly every floating log, every crab den she comes across. Curses leave her lips in aggravated bubbles when said hands come up empty. Thankfully, she doesn’t need to come up for air, or the frustration of losing track of the next stone to overturn would make her quit again. Nevertheless, the twist in her gut begs her to persist. 

The water suddenly chills her bones, and she looks ahead in the current to find the estuary leading into the Dragon Sea. Damn, the river really took her a ways out her-

In a _woosh_ , the current picks up and her body is soaring past the river bed. If she weren’t herself, she’d panic and try to swim against it. But Eddy knows these waters like her mom's old recipes and lets the riptide take her.

That is, until, a glimmer catches her eye in a nook of dirt just before the river opens up into the sea. 

The game changes and, legs sprawling, the water Genasi scrambles against the current. Her body collides with the riverbed, skin scraping against rocks as she tries to catch herself on the root of a tree. As her fingers grip around it, she lets out a groan against the current and tries to look behind her. She can barely make out the metal just out of her reach. It may be nothing, but she’s gotta try. 

With her right hand, the woman holds onto the branch. Eddy’s left shoulder aches as she tries to reach for the lamp without letting go, mouth open to let out a garbled scream under the rushing waves. She’s so _fuckin’_ close. _Come on come on come on..._

When her thin fingers just barely brush the metal, her world goes black.

* * *

Green eyes open, and she’s lying prone out of the riptide, not even in the river at all. Eddy moves her hand behind her shoulder to grab at a...Blue silk cushion? 

The sky above her isn’t even a sky, but a swirling void of dark blue and black, and the gurgle of water surrounds her despite not a drop of it in sight. Beneath her, the ground is a black void that ripples with her movements, green steam rising off the surface.

“Well, dearie,” a disembodied voice bellows around her. It jolts her to her feet, the cushions disappearing in a puff of air. “And who do I have the pleasure of welcoming into the lamp of Kazu the Glorious?”

Eddy’s gaze darts around the room to find the source before a pair of metallic copper eyes suddenly materializes in front of her in a wisp of emerald smoke. Her heart pounds in her chest as the realization hits her - _Lamp…_

She doesn’t try to fight a triumphant laugh.

“To you?” The Primordial falls from her lips just as she’s practiced it over and over - Gods know she’s _been_ ready for this moment. “Eānderil.”

The copper eyes glimmer with recognition. “Ahhh, how _delightful_ ” the voice says back to her in Primordial, now. The smoke materializes into an oblong shape around the eyes hovering a few feet in front of her. Kazu’s features start to frame it one by one: thin brows, a broad nose, square jaw that could cut diamonds, and full green lips.

“Well, welcome to my home, Eānderil” the face muses. Its grin reveals silver teeth. “It’s been _far_ too long since I talked with some family.”

Eddy’s chest clenches. The question tumbles out of her like thunder: “Are you my dad?”

She wants to truly say she has no fear, but the bracelets on her wrist jingle ever so slightly under a betraying twitch. Still, she steels her gaze. Kazu shakes their head - at least, she thinks so; the smoke just kinda moves from side to side. 

“I’m afraid not, darling.” They take note of how she deflates with a frustrated sigh through her nose. _Interesting_ . “All Genasi are my kin, but my _actual_ children expired from this world long before you came into it.” As they speak, Eddy feels the eyes look her up and down, sizing her up. She holds her ground, hands still at her sides and posture straight. If they were this impressed, maybe she’d win this round, after all. 

“Shame, really,” they sigh, “They showed such _potential_.” Their gaze lands on her hands. “Just like you.”

She smirks. “I been told.”

“So, cousin,” Kazu muses as the smoke becomes opaque under their head. The visage of a body forms, figure well over seven feet tall and clothed in a purple robe with cerulean embroidery flowing from the shoulder to the hem in wave-like swirls. Where the robe meets the floor, it drags as if it were pulled through water and leaves ripples in its wake. 

The indignant part of Eddy wants to refuse to look up to meet their gaze, but the proud part of her can’t shy away from eye contact. Not when her fingers twitch at the feeling of her goal _so_ close within her grasp. At this angle, Kazu looks hardly older than she does. “Why don’t you tell me your wish?” they tempt, hardly a foot away from her. “Or do you need help deciding? Let's see..." They tap their chin as they try to remember what these humans like. “Will it be riches? Power? The attention of some man?”

Eddy scoffs, and Kazu raises a brow. “Or a woman? I’m much too old to judg-”

“Cut the shit,” Eddy snaps. It earns an amused smirk from the genie; not that many mortals have her guts. “I know what I want.” She breathes in deeply before uttering what she’s practiced so many times before in the mirror, in the kitchen alone, in the library as she pored over countless tomes about genies. 

“Gimme the power to find whatever I'm looking for. Whenever I’m looking for it.” 

The being raises their brow now, more than amused. She can tell they’re surprised at how general the wish is, but Eddy’s done her research - this has to be precise _and_ vague enough to avoid catastrophic drawbacks like what her mother faces. “Aaaand,” she adds, “throw in _your_ power.”

Kazu grins again, teeth glinting around viridescent fumes. “Clever girl,” they praise as they circle around her. “But two for one?” They shake their head and click their tongue. Overhead, the water’s crash muffles the festival’s fireworks, and Eddy wonders just how far into the ocean this ball of gas has taken her. “You’ll have to trade for it. And what could you _possibly_ have that I don’t?”

Blue lips curl into a smirk. Eddy raises her right hand up and spits into her palm, bangles clanging prominently with the movement. Unflinchingly, she stares into those copper eyes and holds her hand out. Her tongue drags over the top row of her teeth before dares:

“Potential.”

The smoke stretches as Kazu grins yet again. Then, their mouth opens in a raucous and triumphant laugh that reverberates off the walls of the lamp. It shakes the earth around her, and she loses her footing for just a moment. Then, for _more_ than a moment; the whole floor gives way and swallows her up, Kazu’s image fading away body part by body part until it’s just their gleaming eyes amongst the shadows.

Before everything goes dark, she feels a cold hand clasp her own. 

It shakes.

_____

Eddy breaches, long blue locks snaking the water’s surface as she comes up to the shore through the waves. She emerges with saltwater and seafoam dripping off her smooth skin to catch hints of moonlight in beads before they glide down the bend of her waist. Her tunic and pants cling to her curves, flowing into the water like willow branches and threatening to join the tide in returning to the sea. 

Still, Eddy persists to shore and comes to a stand.

She runs a glowing hand through her hair, and the water begins to converge into one amorphous shape that pools from her hairline to the ends as her fingers rake through. When Eddy pulls her hand out, she feels the weight of the water lift away and leave dry tresses. Her brow quirks at this newfound power as she waves her other hand in front of her chest; the water here also seeps from her wet clothes and into her palm almost effortlessly. 

As her hands travel down her body to find dry clothes, the lamp bumps against her hip from its tight tie on her belt loop. If she looks closely, she can barely see a wink of green smoke rise from the open end.

It’s her turn to grin now. 

“Delicious.”

Overhead, the fireworks show swells into its finale, the multicolored lights reflecting off the lamp as Eddy just _barely_ makes out the festival goers' cheers from the pier a few feet away. The woman looks up, watching from the waves and marveling at how the bursts emerge into the heavens to announce _I’m here, I’m here!_ unashamed, unabashed, and unafraid to take their place amongst the stars. 

From one explosion against the stillness to another, she grins outta respect. 


End file.
